A user has 2 checkboxes for each permission, the first one representing the value that is assigned only to his own permissions set, and the second checkbox, the disabled one, representing the effective permission that the user currently has for that action.

Effectivepermissions are calculated based on the values of permissions of the user groups that the user is part of, and his own permissions.

If the user is included in any group, a note will be displayed on top of the permissions list that tells about the effective permissions, and lists the groups that the user is part of.

Once you finish managing permissions, click the Save button from the bottom of the list.

Default permissions for every user or user group can be managed by including in settings.py the following line:

setting True for having all permissions enabled by default and False for not allowing the user to take any action described in the permissions list. By default, GRANT_ALL_PERMISSIONS_IMPLICITLY is set to True. Default permissions are applied on a newly created user or group.